Wow, have these two months flown by! Just 11 more to go until 2015 IA Summit—it is nice that we have that extra month thrown in this year. You can bet we’re using it well.

Meanwhile, I’m on my way via a rather quiet DCA to Iowa and Illinois for a little Midwestern sojourn.

Some things that happened

This update’s list is shorter, but each one is more focused and significant:

Two more chair meetings, including further thoughtful discussion of curation;

Progress on the website, including strategizing and brainstorming and coding;

Initial planning for our site visit to Minneapolis, likely happening in the early fall;

A formal decision that we are indeed co-chairs (more below); and

Jessie said “Farewell!” as she heads off to a European adventure. That’s the great thing about us focusing on groundwork (including the awesome project timeline lead by Jessie) for the last two months—it’s helping us work as an interdependent team.

Chairs or co-chairs?

In the past, IA Summit had two people planning the big picture. They were the chair and the co-chair. The “chair” was the person official in charge of planning that year’s Summit experience, and “co-chair” was the person helping the chair. The co-chair would then become the chair for the next Summit. But, that hand-off process wasn’t the model for Denver, New Orleans, Baltimore, San Diego, or, now, Minneapolis.

The model for Baltimore, San Diego, and Minneapolis is this: There are three co-chairs. They each have different strengths and interests, and each takes on the responsibilities best suited to those strengths and interests. (And, we hire awesome volunteers who take on responsibilities suited to their strengths and interests.)

Since all three members of the chair committee share the responsibility equally, we’re each co-chairs. Ta da!

New teammates

Even more teammates to add! We were just saying in yesterday’s chair meeting how thankful we are that our volunteers are so passionate and skilled and just plain awesome.

Note: Volunteers’ presence on Twitter is voluntary. A volunteer’s presence on Twitter doesn’t necessarily mean they will use their account for IAS business.

Seeking Minneapolis inspiration

Steve and the web team are looking for inspiration for the IAS15 look and feel.

If you’ve got first-hand experience of the City of Lakes or the Twin Cities, watch here and on Twitter for a way to share the images, video, and any other media (got some GIFs? favorite poems?) that say “Minneapolis” to you.